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ICAN’s legal team sent FOIA requests to the Departments of Education of all 20 US states which have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to investigate whether pro-geoengineering content is infiltrating K-12 curriculums. Documents obtained by ICAN reveal public school curriculum is normalizing geoengineering and even promoting it as a solution to combat so-called climate change.
Twenty US states require their K-12 science curriculum to align with NGSS, impacting over 36% of students nationwide. Concerningly, the NGSS’s Human Sustainability standard, HS-ESS3-4, requires students to “[e]valuate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems” including “large-scale geoengineering design solutions (such as altering global temperatures by making large changes to the atmosphere or ocean).”
While not all states have completed processing the FOIA requests, those that have reveal a troubling pattern. So far, Kentucky and New Hampshire’s responses confirm that their curriculum must align with NGSS standards, including HS-ESS3-4. Additionally, a Michigan Department of Education email obtained by ICAN promotes the use of a high school unit which requires students to use “investigations, simulations, and system models” to “figure out how…two geoengineering solutions could help slow polar ice melt, protecting coastal communities.”
Disturbingly, the NGSS standards do NOT explicitly require students to evaluate how geoengineering could impact their health. If the supposed environmental benefits of geoengineering are being taught, shouldn’t our children also learn about its potential catastrophic consequences? Intentionally injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to block the sun poses unknown—and potentially dire—threats to the air we breathe, water we drink, and soil we grow our crops in.
Merely presenting one side of an issue fails to equip our children with the tools they will need to make informed decisions. If you have found geoengineering in your school district’s K-12 curriculum, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected].
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